At the present time, cables of various sorts are used to connect the many pieces of digital and/or communications equipment that may be used in offices, control rooms and the like. When the equipment is installed, or if it is reconfigured later, it is necessary to run hundreds, even thousands, of feet of such cable. The cable is typically provided on spools and is unwound, or dispensed, from these spools as needed. Because of the weight and bulk of the cable, most conventional cable-pulling operations use 1000-foot spools, which weigh approximately 30 pounds each. Because normal cable usage typically results in a scrap of cable at the end of the spool that is too short to use cost-effectively, these scraps are considered waste. Research has revealed the length of the average scrap to be approximately 100 feet, or ten percent of a 1000 foot spool. The scrap length is independent of the volume of cable originally on the spool, so the use of larger capacity spools would result in a correspondingly lower percentage of scrapped cable. It is therefore desired to provide a means for dispensing cable that allows use of larger capacity spools.
In addition, currently available devices for supporting the cable spool(s) during usage do not typically provide for the simultaneous dispensing of cable from multiple spools. At present, make-shift cable dispensing devices may even include one or more lengths of pipe inserted through the rungs of a step ladder to form a crude axle for each spool. More commonly, the spools supplying the cable are positioned at the installation site on their ends so that they do not roll as the cable is unwound. The cable installer has to make sure that the cables do not become tangled or kinked as they unwind.
Other devices exist that are capable of supporting multiple spools, but these are not collapsible and tend to be expensive. Devices that are not collapsible are disadvantageous because they require use of freight or service entrances and elevators. In a large office building the installation crew may spend a significant amount of time waiting for the freight elevator to become available before the equipment can be brought to the installation site. Such downtime adds to the expense of the installation. Hence, it is desired to provide a collapsible cable dispensing dolly that is simple to use and inexpensive to manufacture. It is further desired that the dolly be capable of transporting and dispensing cable from as many as eight spools simultaneously.